A WINDOW IN THRUMS CHAPTER V A HUMORIST ON HIS CALLING

After the eight o’clock bell had rung, Hendry occasionally crossed over to the farm of T’nowhead and sat on the pig-sty. If no one joined him he scratched the pig, and returned home gradually. Here what was almost a club held informal meetings, at which two or four, or even half a dozen assembled to debate, when there was any one to start them. The meetings were only memorable when Tammas Haggart was in fettle, to pronounce judgments in his well-known sarcastic way. Sometimes we had got off the pig-sty to separate before Tammas was properly yoked. There we might remain a long time, planted round him like trees, for he was a mesmerising talker.

There was a pail belonging to the pig-sty, which some one would turn bottom upwards and sit upon if the attendance was unusually numerous. Tammas liked, however, to put a foot on it now and again in the full swing of a harangue, and when he paused for a sarcasm I have seen the pail kicked toward him. He had the wave of the arm that is so convincing in argument, and such a natural way of asking questions, that an audience not used to public speaking might have thought he wanted them to reply. It is an undoubted fact, that when he went on the platform, at the time of the election, to heckle the Colonel, he paused in the middle of his questions to take a drink out of the tumbler of water which stood on the table. As soon as they saw what he was up to, the spectators raised a ringing cheer.

On concluding his perorations, Tammas sent his snuff-mull round, but we had our own way of passing him a vote of thanks. One of the company would express amazement at his gift of words, and the others would add, “Man, man,” or “Ye cow, Tammas,” or, “What a crittur ye are!” all which ejaculations meant the same thing. A new subject being thus ingeniously introduced, Tammas again put his foot on the pail.

“I tak no creedit,” he said, modestly, on the evening, I remember, of Willie Pyatt’s funeral, “in bein’ able to speak wi’ a sort o’ faceelity on topics ‘at I’ve made my ain.”

“Ay,” said T’nowhead, “but it’s no the faceelity o’ speakin’ ‘at taks me. There’s Davit Lunan ‘at can speak like as if he had learned it aff a paper, an’ yet I canna thole ‘im.”

“Davit,” said Hendry, “doesna speak in a wy ‘at a body can follow ‘im. He doesna gae even on. Jess says he’s juist like a man ay at the cross-roads, an’ no sure o’ his wy. But the stock has words, an’ no ilka body has that.”

“If I was bidden to put Tammas’s gift in a word,” said T’nowhead, “I would say ‘at he had a wy. That’s what I would say.”

“Weel, I suppose I have,” Tammas admitted, “but, wy or no wy, I couldna put a point on my words if it wasna for my sense o’ humour. Lads, humour’s what gies the nip to speakin’.”

“It’s what maks ye a sarcesticist, Tammas,” said Hendry; “but what I wonder at is yer sayin’ the humorous things sae aisy like. Some says ye mak them up aforehand, but I ken that’s no true.”

“No only is’t no true,” said Tammas, “but it couldna be true. Them ‘at says sic things, an’, weel I ken you’re meanin’ Davit Lunan, hasna nae idea o’ what humour is. It’s a think ‘at spouts oot o’ its ain accord. Some of the maist humorous things I’ve ever said cam oot, as a body may say, by themsels.”

“I suppose that’s the case,” said T’nowhead, “an’ yet it maun be you ‘at brings them up?”

“There’s no nae doubt aboot its bein’ the case,” said Tammas, “for I’ve watched mysel often. There was a vara guid instance occurred sune after I married Easie. The Earl’s son met me one day, aboot that time, i’ the Tenements, and he didna ken ‘at Chirsty was deid, an’ I’d married again. ‘Well, Haggart,’ he says, in his frank wy, ‘and how is your wife?’ ‘She’s vara weel, sir,’ I maks answer, ‘but she’s no the ane you mean.'”

“Na, he meant Chirsty,” said Hendry.

“Is that a’ the story?” asked T’nowhead.

Tammas had been looking at us queerly.

“There’s no nane o’ ye lauchin’,” he said, “but I can assure ye the Earl’s son gaed east the toon lauchin’ like onything.”

“Am no sayin’ I did, but as I’ve been tellin’ ye, humour spouts oot by itsel.”

“Ay, but do ye ken noo what the Earl’s son gaed awa lauchin’ at?”

Tammas hesitated.

“I dinna exactly see’t,” he confessed, “but that’s no an oncommon thing. A humorist would often no ken ‘at he was ane if it wasna by the wy he makes other fowk lauch. A body canna be expeckit baith to mak the joke an’ to see’t. Na, that would be doin’ twa fowks’ wark.”

“Weel, that’s reasonable enough, but I have often seen ye lauchin’,” said Hendry, “lang afore other fowk lauched.”

“Nae doubt,” Tammas explained, “an’ that’s because humour has twa sides, juist like a penny piece. When I say a humorous thing mysel I’m dependent on other fowk to tak note o’ the humour o’t, bein’ mysel ta’en up wi’ the makkin’ o’t. Ay, but there’s things I see an’ hear ‘at maks me lauch, an’ that’s the other side o’ humour.”

“I never heard it put sae plain afore,” said T’nowhead, “an’, sal, am no nane sure but what am a humorist too.”

“Na, na, no you, T’nowhead,” said Tammas, hotly.

“Weel,” continued the farmer, “I never set up for bein’ a humorist, but I can juist assure ye ‘at I lauch at queer things too. No lang syne I woke up i’ my bed lauchin’ like onything, an’ Lisbeth thocht I wasna weel. It was something I dreamed ‘at made me lauch, I couldna think what it was, but I laughed richt. Was that no fell like a humorist?”

“That was neither here nor there,” said Tammas. “Na, dreams dinna coont, for we’re no responsible for them. Ay, an’ what’s mair, the mere lauchin’s no the important side o’ humour, even though ye hinna to be telt to lauch. The important side’s the other side, the sayin’ the humorous things. I’ll tell ye what: the humorist’s like a man firin’ at a target—he doesna ken whether he hits or no till them at the target tells ‘im.”

“I would be of opeenion,” said Hendry, who was one of Tammas’s most staunch admirers, “‘at another mark o’ the rale humorist was his seein’ humour in all things?”

Tammas shook his head—a way he had when Hendry advanced theories.

“I dinna haud wi’ that ava,” he said. “I ken fine ‘at Davit Lunan gaes aboot sayin’ he sees humour in everything, but there’s nae surer sign ‘at he’s no a genuine humorist. Na, the rale humorist kens vara weel ‘at there’s subjects withoot a spark o’ humour in them. When a subject rises to the sublime it should be regairded philosophically, an’ no humorously. Davit would lauch ‘at the grandest thochts, whaur they only fill the true humorist wi’ awe. I’ve found it necessary to rebuke ‘im at times whaur his lauchin’ was oot o’ place. He pretended aince on this vara spot to see humour i’ the origin o’ cock-fightin’.”

“Did he, man?” said Hendry; “I wasna here. But what is the origin o’ cock-fechtin’?”

“It was a’ i’ the Cheap Magazine,” said T’nowhead.

“Was I sayin’ it wasna?” demanded Tammas. “It was through me readin’ the account oot o’ the Cheap Magazine ‘at the discussion arose.”

“Ay, weel,” said Tammas, “that’s a’ richt. Ou, the origin o’ cock-fightin’ gangs back to the time o’ the Greek wars, a thoosand or twa years syne, mair or less. There was ane, Miltiades by name, ‘at was the captain o’ the Greek army, an’ one day he led them doon the mountains to attack the biggest army ‘at was ever gathered thegither.”

“They were Persians,” interposed T’nowhead.

“Are you tellin’ the story, or am I?” asked Tammas. “I kent fine ‘at they were Persians. Weel, Miltiades had the matter o’ twenty thoosand men wi’ im’, and when they got to the foot o’ the mountain, behold there was two cocks fechtin’.”

“Ay, then,” continued the stone-breaker, “when Miltiades saw the cocks at it wi’ all their micht, he stopped the army and addressed it. ‘Behold!’ he cried, at the top o’ his voice, ‘these cocks do not fight for their household gods, nor for the monuments of their ancestors, nor for glory, nor for liberty, nor for their children, but only because the one will not give way unto the other.'”

“It was nobly said,” declared Hendry; “na, cocks wouldna hae sae muckle understandin’ as to fecht for thae things. I wouldna wonder but what it was some laddies ‘at set them at ane another.’

“I wonder the other billies would want to tak them awa. They would be a michty wecht.”

“Ay, but they wanted them, an’ nat’rally the Greeks stuck to the stanes they paid for.”

“So, so, an’ did Davit Lunan mak oot ‘at there was humour in that?”

“He do so. He said it was a humorous thing to think o’ a hale army lookin’ on at twa cocks fechtin’. I assure ye I telt ‘im ‘at I saw nae humour in’t. It was ane o’ the most impressive sichts ever seen by man, an’ the Greeks was sae inspired by what Miltiades said ‘at they sweepit the Persians oot o’ their country.”